I’ve enjoyed Jenn Pelly‘s writing about music and pop culture for a while now; when the announcement was first made a few years ago, I was very excited to hear that she’d be writing about The Raincoats as part of the 33 1/3 series. This fall, Pelly’s book on The Raincoats was published, and it was everything I’d hoped for: a solid history of the band’s early days, an insightful look into the band’s creative process, and a book that […]
Stunning Sounds From Out of Time in Downtown Brooklyn
First, let’s talk about the physical space. I’d been in the space that was formerly the Brooklyn Paramount once before, several years ago, to watch some roller derby on a winter’s night.What had previously been a 4,500-seat theater has, for the last few decades, been converted into the basketball court for Long Island University–meaning that gorgeous architectural features coexist with mechanically-operated bleachers and a hanging scoreboard.
Talking About The Mountain Goats, With The Mountain Goats
It’s been about twenty years since I first heard The Mountain Goats. Friends in college turned me on to what I’m going to refer to as “the hits”–i.e. “Going to Georgia” and “Cubs in Five,” songs that showcased John Darnielle’s lyrical range, urgent vocal delivery, and fondness for lo-fi recordings. It’s something that’s shaped how I’ve listened to them; despite the fact that it’s been fifteen years since the release of Tallahassee, there’s still a strange sense of the new […]
Phil Marcade on Revisiting New York’s Musical Past in “Punk Avenue”
The New York punk scene of the late 1970s is a well-documented one, with many writers and musicians associated with the scene offering their impressions and memories of a period that had a seismic effect on rock music. Phil Marcade’s memoir Punk Avenue: Inside the New York City Underground 1972-1982 comes with introductions from both Debbie Harry and Legs McNeil, and offers an interesting take on the music and personalities of the scene. Marcade was a participant in it, as […]
“Small Vignettes Comprising a Bigger Whole”: Inside Human Potential’s “Hot Gun Western City”
The last time I talked with Andrew Becker about his musical project Human Potential, it was 2014. Human Potential’s debut, Heartbreak Record, had just been released, and its off-kilter approach to pop (with an edginess that hearkened back to Becker’s time in bands like Medications) was deeply compelling. Now it’s three years later, and Human Potential’s third album, Hot Gun Western City, has recently entered the world. This album finds Becker’s range expanding considerably, from the Stars of the Lid-esque […]
Hannah Lew on Cold Beat’s New Album, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Music for Machines
Chaos By Invitation is the name of the third album by San Francsisco’s Cold Beat–though, to hear the band’s founder, Hannah Lew, talk about its genesis, chaos may be the last thing that comes to mind. The sound of the group’s albums have veered from urgent postpunk to a more ethereal sound, the main constants being Lew’s vocals and her distinctive lyrical sensibility. We talked about the role of science fiction in her work, how the work of Ursula K. […]
So Lee Ranaldo and Jonathan Lethem Wrote Some Songs Together
We here at Vol.1 Brooklyn are admirers of the music of Lee Ranaldo–both his work as a solo artist and his considerable body of work with Sonic Youth. (We talked with him in 2012, in fact.) We’re also quite fond of the writings of Jonathan Lethem. Needless to say, then, we were quite pleased to hear that Ranaldo and Lethem collaborated on several songs for the former’s forthcoming album Electric Trim.
A Harrowing Take on the Touring Life: Keith Buckley’s “Scale,” Reviewed
As with most fictional depictions of professions, writing about the life of a musician without a sense of veracity can go awry in a host of ways. If you’re writing about a pop star whose supposed hits come off like authorial conceits, the narrative will stumble. Novels and stories about smaller-scale artists can feel lived-in or artificial; that can go a long way towards whether or not the work as a whole works.